Green Bay — The NFL has a problem. Receivers here know it, and so do the defensive backs.

They saw the destruction firsthand at the 12-yard line inside M&T Bank Stadium. Green Bay's Randall Cobb reached for a pass high. Baltimore's Matt Elam dived for the tackle low. A split-second later, the Green Bay Packers wide receiver was writhing in pain with a fractured fibula. The bone nearly shattered completely.

No, players say, this absolutely won't be the last time you see this exact collision.

"It just started," tight end Jermichael Finley said. "Knock on wood. But it just started."

Players and coaches alike understand the NFL's plight. The league seeks long-term survival. This month, the concussion conversation recharged with the publication of "League of Denial." On the eve of the 2013 season, the NFL settled its concussion lawsuit at $765 million. The fight for Mom's support of the game is officially on, too — the "Heads Up Football" advertisements have been cranked to full blast.

Yes, high hits are being eliminated from the game. Like it or not, that's the reality for NFL defensive backs.

Safety Chris Banjo admits he wants "to be defensive." He really wishes he could criticize Elam for injuring a teammate, a friend. But he can't.

"Putting myself in that same exact situation," Banjo said, "I can understand it. The way the league is going now really trying to affect players on hits like that, situations like that, his thought process is to try to get him off the ball, which he ended up doing.

"I hate to see Randall get hurt. He's not only a good player, but a better person. But I can completely understand why (Elam) went there."

In Green Bay, the coach in the eye of this building storm was a safety himself — Darren Perry. Through his eight pro seasons roaming the secondary, Perry was fined only once. With the Pittsburgh Steelers, he remembers playing in Cover 2 against Chris Chandler and the Houston Oilers.

Perry broke on the ball down the sideline, was fined, appealed and had that fine wiped out.

Today, he knows that appeal would end up in the trash bin. And he would've drawn a lot more flags and fines himself.

"Oh, golly," Perry said. "It would have been more than a few times I'm sure. More than a few times."

Perry hasn't studied a replay of Elam's hit on Cobb, but he does understand the frustration from both sides. With player safety at "an all-time high," it's difficult for defensive backs to make split-second judgment calls, he said.

"There's not a lot of time to be thinking," Perry said, "because when you are thinking, a lot of times you're not playing fast."

So while Perry hasn't necessarily had to change the way he coaches his safeties, he has had to make sure his players don't let up on the gas. So many in Green Bay are riding rookie contracts. No, $21,000 is not loose change.

"The big thing you have to coach against is guys slowing down and being hesitant in their actions because guys don't want to get fined," Perry said. "That's a lot of money coming out of a person's pocket. That's a tough deal. Nobody wants to have 20, 30 grand that they're fined. Nobody wants that taken out of their paycheck."

Thus, you can see Banjo's point. Banjo was working a desk job all of last year.

Hit high and you're fined. Play slow and you're out of a job. Instinctively, forced into a "bang-bang" play, safeties will be more apt to dive low. The target area — a receiver's midsection — might change at the last moment. The receiver, like Cobb at Baltimore, might duck his head at the last second.

So it makes sense for the safety to cut low, to be sure he doesn't bash helmet to helmet. In hindsight, maybe quarterback Aaron Rodgers and others were correct in their postgame criticism. Elam could have lined up for a form tackle. But as Perry noted in general, it's "a lot easier when you have a remote control in your hand."

"It's unfortunate," Banjo said, "but we get cut for being in positions like that. If you're letting a guy catch the ball, you could have got him but you didn't hit him because of what's going through your head — we get cut for that."

Perry coaches his players to avoid the head and neck area, to always "see what you hit." Overall, he believes defensive backs can still play with "a certain temperament" and "a certain physicalness" within the NFL's strict rules on head-to-head collisions and defenseless receivers.

He hopes the leg injuries don't multiply league-wide.

"Nobody wants to have their careers injured, guys don't want you going at their knees," Perry said. "So you just need to see what you hit. We're always coaching to stay up. With that in mind, that should keep you from the knee area and in that midsection, chest area. You hope. You're still going to play at a certain speed. Guys move, targets move. And that's when you have to be careful — when that target moves."

On the flip side, many receivers say they'd rather get hit high than low. The day after Cobb's injury, one pass-catcher texted a somber "Smh (shake my head), the unintended byproduct of the fines." Several others told Banjo they'd rather get tagged high. Leg injuries threaten careers. And Finley — a player who has both torn his meniscus (in 2010) and suffered a concussion (this season) — would rather take a hit from the waist up.

Three weeks after suffering a scary concussion — wobbling off the field at Cincinnati like Rocky Balboa — Finley still would rather get hit high if given the lose-lose choice.

"Nobody wants to get fined," Finley said. "It's the course of the game, the heat of the moment. You don't know what's going to happen. You're just playing ball and doing what you're supposed to do. It's an all-of-a-sudden thing. It's a part of it, but I'd rather take a shot to the head."

After a low hit ended Miami tight end Dustin Keller's season, Houston safety D.J. Swearinger pointed to the league rules. Elam's hit stirred the heads-or-legs debate again. Finley is bracing for a trend. This game is played too fast for defenders to make calculated, target-zone tackles 100% of the time.

Yes, the tight end says, the NFL has "a big problem" on its hands.

"It's going to be terrible, I think," Finley said. "You have your head turned to the quarterback and the guy has a free shot on you and hits you in the legs — that's crazy."

There were no clear-cut answers to the problem in Green Bay during the week. Rather, questions, concerns. This will be a lingering, ongoing debate across the NFL.

Rookie cornerback Micah Hyde — a rugged player in his own right — was blunt, too. In today's game, today's no-fly-zone culture, he can "totally understand" why Elam went low on Cobb.

Said Hyde, "I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't go low like that. I hope the guy doesn't get hurt, but it happens. It's the game."

So Green Bay loses its human dynamo of a weapon until at least Dec. 15. Cobb played with a virtual jet pack over his back. His last 19 full games, Cobb had 1,279 receiving yards and 10 touchdowns, remaining a threat in the return game and in the backfield. Suddenly, the Packers may be forced to win a different type of game. A slower game.

They won't be alone, either.

Maybe Sunday. Maybe next week. Maybe the week after that. At some point, another star receiver will suffer the same fate. Then another.

Count on it, players say. This is the glitch in NFL player safety.

"It's unfortunate," Banjo said, "to know there will probably be more situations and hits like this. I don't see how else it can be stopped."